^{page 171 note 1} Here are a few definitions: “Apostolic succession means an unbroken series of ordination from the days of the Apostles to our time.”—Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia. This would not be acceptable to many Churchmen, from its omission of the divine authority of the episcopal office; other Churchmen admit the succession as a fact, but deny the assumption of divine authority. “A favorite term with prelates and High Churchmen to designate what is claimed to be an unbroken line of clerical ordination from the Apostles to the present time.”—McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia. Same defect, save that in the discussion following the missing idea of divine authority is supplied, “Apostolic succession is the transmission, through the episcopate, of the power and authority committed by our Lord to his Apostles, for the guidance and govenment of the Church.”—J. H. Blunt, Theological Dictionary. This more adequately expresses the High-Church idea than any other brief definition I have found.

^{page 172 note 1} History of the Reformation, vol. i., part ii., pp. 314–369.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 1} Burnet, , ubi supra, pp. 343–346Google Scholar. The italics in the above extract are in the text of Burnet (Oxford ed., 1829). In every case I have scrupulously followed the typography of the authors quoted in this paper.

^{page 174 note 2} Ibid., p. 357.

^{page 175 note 1} Burnet, , ubi supra, p. 487.Google Scholar

^{page 175 note 2} Works, vol. ii., p. 206, Oxford ed., 1848.Google Scholar

^{page 176 note 1} Works, vol. i., pp. 321–323, Cambridge, 1847.Google Scholar

^{page 176 note 2} Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. iii., ch. xi., Keble's ed. This passage is approvingly quoted by Stillingfleet, in his Irenicon.

^{page 177 note 1} Ibid., bk. vii., ch. xiv., III.

^{page 177 note 2} Preface to Hooker, 's Ecclesiastical Polity, p. xxxviii.Google Scholar

^{page 177 note 3} New Englander, 1874, p. 137Google Scholar. It was such acts as these to which Keble refers when he says that Grindal's “connivance at the conduct of the Puritans is well known.” Preface to Hooker, , p. xxxii.Google Scholar

^{page 178 note 1} Quoted in the New Englander, 1874, p. 132.Google Scholar

^{page 178 note 2} Works, vol. ix., p. 356.Google Scholar

^{page 178 note 3} Advertisement Concerning Controversies of the Church of England, 1589 (?) Works, Montagu's ed. vol. vii., p. 48.Google Scholar

^{page 178 note 4} Hallam, (Constitutional History, Harper's ed., p. 226)Google Scholar questions whether Bancroft really taught the doctrine at all.

^{page 179 note 1} History of England, vol. iv., p. 480, Harper's ed.Google Scholar

^{page 180 note 1} For the statements contained in this last paragraph I give no detailed citation of authorities. They may be found, in substantially the same form, in any standard English history, and are not likely to be questioned.

^{page 180 note 2} The occasion of the treatise was the action of M. G. Grahame, Bishop of Orkney, who renounced his episcopal function and craved pardon for having accepted it.

^{page 181 note 1} Works (Oxford, 1863), vol. ix., p. 160Google Scholar. Considerable light is thrown upon the character of this treatise by some private letters written by Bishop Hall to Archbishop Laud during the composition of the book. These letters were discovered among Laud's papers, neatly docketed in his own hand. In one, dated as having been received Jan. 30, 1640, Hall says: “Your grace will soon find that I have been plain enough with our Genevians; for the foreign churches I have taken the same course with our learned Bishop Andrews, as pitying their alleging necessity, not approving the form; in the meantime not thinking it best to make enemies where we may have friends.” Before this, in a letter received by Laud, Jan. 22, 1639, he had said much the same thing, apparently to satisfy the archbishop that he would be severe enough on the Presbyterians: “As for my favorableness to foreign authors and churches, I foretold your grace that I held it best not to be sparing of good words, though in the reality of the tenet I have gone farther than the most others.” (Hall, 's Works, vol. x., pp. 542, 543.Google Scholar) It is difficult to acquit the good bishop of being somewhat of a trimmer, between Laud on the one hand and the Presbyterians on the other. In his first treatise, whether by accident or design, he left open a loophole for retreat, of which he later availed himself; for though his premises logically involve the invalidity of non-episcopal orders, he refrained from drawing the conclusion in so many words, leaving it rather to the inference of his readers.

^{page 182 note 1} Hall, 's Works, vol. ix., p. 291.Google Scholar

^{page 183 note 1} Hall, 's Works, vol. ix., pp. 356, 357.Google Scholar

^{page 184 note 1} Irenicon, part ii., chap. iv.

^{page 184 note 2} Ibid. See Stillingfleet, 's Complete Works, 6 vols., folio, London, 1709Google Scholar. The Bishop fortifies himself in his position by a large number of quotations from Church of England divines, many of which I have already given above. Some that I have not been able to verify, yet find exceptionally significant, I append:

Archbishop Whitgift “On Church Government”: “The form of discipline is not particularly and by name set down in Scripture. No kind of Government is expressed in the Word, or can necessarily be concluded from thence.”

Dr. Loe, in “Complaint of the Church”: “No certain form of Government is prescribed in the Word, only general rules laid down for it.”

Bishop Bridges, on “Church Government”: “God hath not expressed the form of Church Government, at least not so as to bind us to it.”

King James: “That the Civil power in any Nation, hath the right of prescribing what internal form of Church Government it please, which doth most agree to the Civil form of Government in the State.”

“That incomparable man, Mr. Holes,” as Stillingfleet calls him, in his “Tract of Schism”: “For they do but abase themselves and others, that would persuade us, that Bishops by Christ's institutions have any superiority over men, farther than of Reverence.”

See Irenicon, part ii., chap. vii.

^{page 185 note 1} “Of the Sacred Order and Officer of Episcopacy, by Divine Institution, Apostolical Tradition, and Catholic Practice.” Works, vol. vii. Heber's ed., London, 1822.Google Scholar

^{page 185 note 2} Rejectio regiminis Episcopalis, ubi habentur orthodoxi et leghimi episcopi, facit proprie schisma mortale. “De Regimine Episcopali.” Works, vol. viii., p. 33, Oxford ed., 1830.Google Scholar

^{page 186 note 1} He maintains in his De Episcopis that there have been three orders of the ministry from the Apostles down, and that “nihil inter jus divinum et Apostolicum interest.” Works, vol. xii., pp. 153–187, Oxford, 1848.Google Scholar

^{page 186 note 2} “As for our parts, we believe Episcopacy to be at least an Apostolic institution, approved by Christ Himself in the Revelation, ordained in the infancy of Christianity as a remedy against schism; and we bless God that we have a clear succession of it.” “A just vindication of the Church of England from the unjust aspersion of criminal schism.”—Works, vol. i., p. 271, Oxford, 1842.Google Scholar

^{page 188 note 1} “Elements of Christian Theology, London; 1843, Vol. ii., pp. 346–7Google Scholar. The dedication of the first edition of this work is dated July 1, 1799.

^{page 188 note 2} “The apostolic directions which are preserved in the writings of the New Testament seem to exclude no ecclesiastical constitution which the experience and more instructed judgment of future ages might find it expedient to adopt.” … “If there be any truth in these observations, they lead to this temperate and charitable conclusion: ‘that Christianity may be professed under any form of church government.’”…“The chief article of regulation upon which the judgment of some Protestant churches dissents from ours is, that whilst they have established a perfect parity among their clergy, we prefer a distinction of orders in the church, not only as recommended by the usage of the purest times, but as well calculated to promote, what all churches must desire, the credit and efficacy of the sacerdotal office.”—Sermon on Eph. iv., 11, 12. Works, edited by Paley, Edmund. London, 1830. Vol. vi., pp. 91–94.Google Scholar

^{page 188 note 3} “Amidst the wars and tumults and general confusion which took place at various times during that space [eighteen centuries], and especially during what are called ‘the dark ages,’ when ignorance and barbarism, as well as law less violence, were so prevalent, it may have happened, more than once, that some person who had never been regularly ordained, or, perhaps, even baptized, may have continued to intrude himself into the ministerial office; and to have even attained the rank of a bishop; and may thus have been the ordainer of others, the successors of whom may possibly be among ourselves at this day. There is no Christian minister now existing that can trace up, with complete certainty, his own ordination, through perfectly regular steps, to the times of the Apostles. And, accordingly, if the reality of the ministerial office were made to depend, not on a man's being an acknowledged minister of a Christian Church, but on a certain mysterious sacramental virtue, transmitted from hand to hand, in unbroken succession from the Apostles, there would be a most distressing and incurable uncertainty in each Christian's mind, whether he were really baptized, really ordained, or really partaker of any Christian privileges.”—Whately, 's General View of the Rise, Progress, and Corruptions of Christianity, New York, 1860, pp. 169, 170Google Scholar. Compare Macaulay's incidental discussion of the question in his essay, “Gladstone on Church and State.”

^{page 189 note 1} “It is certain that throughout the first century, and for the first part of the second, that is, through the later chapters of the Acts, the Apostolical Epistles, and the writings of Clement and Hermas, Bishop and Presbyter were convertible terms.” Christian Institutions, American ed., p. 187Google Scholar. “It is as sure that nothing like modern Episcopacy existed before the close of the first century as it is that nothing like modern Presbyterianism existed after the beginning of the second.” (Ibid., p. 188.) “It was only by slow degrees that the name of Bishop became appropriated to one chief pastor raised high in rank and station above the rank of the clergy.” (Ibid., p. 194.) At Alexandria presbyters long retained the right of ordaining bishops; see Stanley, 's Lectures on the Eastern Church, lecture vii.Google Scholar

^{page 189 note 2} The Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament, by the Rev. G. A. Jacob, D.D., chap, iii., on the Christian ministry, and Appendix D.

^{page 189 note 3} Organization of the Early Christian Church, London, 1881Google Scholar. Hatch holds that ordination was at first only appointment, that imposition of hands was not a universal rite, and that ordination was not supposed in the early Church to confer exclusive spiritual powers. Pp. 126–132.

^{page 190 note 1} The Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman, edited by Anne Mozley, show what an essential connection this whole movement had with the idea of the succession. See, for example, vol. i., pp, 379, 383, 396; vol. ii., pp. 17, 146, 358.

^{page 191 note 1} After the manuscript of this article had gone to the printer, there appeared in the Independent (March 8th and 15th) a series of letters from the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, whose contents necessitate some modification of this sentence. These letters are not, perhaps, to be regarded as an official commentary on the Lambeth-Chicago articles, but they clearly indicate an almost unanimous consensus of opinion among the American bishops that the validity of non-episcopal ordination can under no circumstances be recognized by their Church, even should it appear that such recognition is an indispensable condition of Christian unity. The only ground on which this refusal can consistently be based is, of course, a belief in the Apostolic Succession of orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the lack of such succession in the ministry of other denominations.